ship, when you got through with the double bottom if they did not know how to go on to some other part of it, you would have to lay them off. With this continuous production, providing only you can get material and have the labor, you can keep them steadily busy until the contract is closed up, keep their interest, keep their skill, keep their training, and they themselves will be better off.

*

How do you know we did this right? In the first place, we had gone over this [indicating schedule] with every competent ship man that we could reasonably reach and who could take the time to sit down and go into the details of this. The New York Shipbuilding Co.'s people went into it in detail. We have had some of the most prominent men in the country go through the details of this, one of them only recently. Half of them are certain that this schedule, providing the material is secured, is going to be lived up to. The other half of them are sure it can be done in less time than that. So it is a matter of opinion. It has never been done in just quite this order or sequence. It is a combination of old, tried out methods into one whole.

GUARANTEEING THE FARMER

The Rotary Club Food Guarantee Association, Inc., of Brockton, Massachusetts, has devised a scheme to prevent food shortage. The association was formed for the purpose of overcoming a very obvious fact. To quote one of the members: "We felt that practically every manufacturer sold his products in advance, but the farmer was asked to take all chances on weather conditions, etc., and sell his products at whatever he could get at harvesting time." To put the farmer on the same footing with the manufacturer is the task which the association has undertaken.

The association, which terms itself "a Corporation duly organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the purpose of encouraging agriculture in the County of Plymouth in said Commonwealth," proposes to fix a minimum price per bushel for corn, beans and potatoes raised in the county during the season of 1918 by producers who will enter into contracts with the association, and if the market prices of these products, when offered for sale to the association, shall be below the minimum prices so fixed, the association will, at its option, either buy the products at the minimum prices fixed or require that they be sold by the producers at the market prices, the difference between the market prices and the minimum price being made up to them.

It is proposed to raise a fund of $100,000 or more for the purposes above stated, and the subscribers to the fund bind themselves to give to the Association their notes due on demand without interest for the sums set against their respective names.

Some of the conditions of subscription are as follows:

1. Said Corporation shall have the privilege of using said notes as collateral for the purposes stated.

2. Any moneys received on these notes shall be used by the Corporation for the purposes stated, only in the event that the wholesale market price per bushel in Boston of corn, beans and potatoes of the quality hereinafter described is lower than the prices hereinafter stated. Expenses incurred by the Rotary Club Food Guarantee Association in carrying out the plan outlined above shall be paid by the subscribers pro rata.

3. In the event that the market price is lower than the

price hereinafter stated for the products offered for sale to the Corporation, the Corporation is, at its option, either to make up to the producer the difference between the market price and the minimum price or purchase the produce at the following prices and on the following conditions: Corn at $1.80 per bushel, the corn to be shelled, White or Yellow Flint Corn, sound, sweet and reasonably clean, at least 95% of the color contracted for, shall contain not over 17% moisture and not over 10% of foreign material and cracked or otherwise damaged kernels, the intent being to call for corn of a grade right for milling for table use; beans at $8.00 per bushel, the beans to be choice hand-picked, shelled beans (Yellow-eyed or equivalent); potatoes at $1.50 per bushel, the potatoes to be sound, of good quality (Green Mountain or equivalent), field-run and with no tubers less than two and one-half inches in length.

4. These products shall not be purchased after November 15, 1918, and if for any reason no such products are purchased by the Corporation, the notes given by each subscriber shall be returned to him on receipt of his check for his pro rata share of expenses.

These are among the main features of the new project. It is further provided that any dispute arising under the contract as to quality or otherwise is to be referred to the Federal Inspector of Grain, Boston, for settlement, and his decision is to be final and binding on both parties. It is also provided that should the United States Government establish prices for these products other than those above set forth, the prices so established shall govern instead of those just outlined. The Corporation is to have the privilege of inspecting by its agent or agents the acreage agreed upon and the products raised thereon at any time during the season, at harvest or before the 15th day of November, 1918. The producers are to have the privilege of refusing to sell their products at the prices stated above. The contract expressly states the number of acres which the producer shall plant.

In outlining its scheme, the Rotary Club Food Guarantee Association says: "As practical business men, we appreciate the reason why farmers hesitate in increasing their acreage until they are assured of equitable prices for their produce. An oversupply has many times wiped out the farmers' profits in the past and experience has taught them to plant only what they feel they

can positively sell at a profit." Under date of May 8th, a member of the Association writes us as follows: "Our Guarantee Association has been established only a few weeks, but up to the present time, we have signed contracts for 20,000 bushels of potatoes, 1,060 bushels of beans and 8,500 bushels of corn, increasing production on these contracts from 10 to 25%. We are in hopes of increasing the production of staple products in Plymouth County 25%. We do not believe, however, that any of these products will be turned in to us at the end of the season, as the market price will, no doubt, be in excess of our guarantee."

It will interest some of those who read these remarks to learn that the president of the Rotary Club Food Guarantee Association is Mr. D. M. DeBard, commercial agent of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brockton.

THE INTANGIBLE "THEY” AND WHAT TO

DO ABOUT IT

BY G. W. LEE

They say human nature is the same the world over, and that it cannot be changed! A sweeping generality, fabricated in the dim past and responsible for the War and for a host of other evils.

They say, too, that carrots make you handsome! A harmless recipe (possibly correct), which may first have occurred to some thrifty New England ancestor who believed that to feed on this lesser vegetable is to do "handsomely," for thus he has more for the fatherless and widows.

Again, they say that George Washington never told a lie! A report which we hope is absolutely true.

One could readily collect hundreds of such homely traditions, some of which, like the glorification of the carrot, are accepted by most of us as pleasantry, while others, equally trite, like the standardization of human nature, are accepted by most of us as unimpeachable fact. No harm in these popular sayings when actually they are facts; for, to arrive at truth, to have the ability to distinguish reality from rumor, to know what "is" instead of resting content with specious conclusion from what "they say" - this, of course, is what we all like to believe we are seeking.

Simple and obvious enough — eternally to seek the truth and admittedly most desirable! We have, however, the momentous question: What is truth? Truth is not simply a great goal to which we must struggle, but is a feature of every experience in our search for the ultimate; life being an infinite series of goals, each to be attained before the next is possible of attainment. This, however, amounts to saying that method (the advance from experience to experience) is of more consequence than acquirement, also expressed by the motto: "Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."

Illustrations are plentiful. We know, for instance, how unbearable people can be when, in hunting for something in particular, they relentlessly push aside the fact that anything else can legitimately claim their attention. Could it have been so with Christopher Columbus? He was certainly a man whose memory we revere; yet can we be sure he was not so insistent